


eye to eye (so alive)

by 13pens



Series: More Than the Shadows (of Each Other) [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sister-Sister Relationship, i'm trash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:10:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2439671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13pens/pseuds/13pens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection post-MTTS ficlets, mostly vignettes of other things that happen within this ficverse that i am still clearly too invested in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. schrodinger's sister (aka regina's recurring nightmares decide to change it up in the worst way)

**Author's Note:**

> much thanks to steph/strangesmallbard for feeding me trash. another ficlet is on the way. beyond that i'm just winging the shit out of everything. forgive me.

She’s here again. She’s at the barn, and the stench of hay and smoke and dark magic is almost suffocating to her.

 

But it’s different this time. Regina is vaguely aware of the blurry vignette compromising her thoughts, but she knows she’s not supposed to be here.

 

Usually it is the shop. Usually the one in her arms, holding on to the thinning thread of life with so much futility, is mother. That she has dealt with time and time again, every so often during these vulnerable nights, but that routine has unhinged and latched to something living. It has tied a rope between something of her precious, precious present and the cloudy past and is choking them together.

 

“Don’t,” is all that can come out of the mouth that is hardly hers anymore, she wants to say more, _no more_ , but all that comes out is a strangled _don’t_.

 

Cold, cold eyes glare at her, but they become soft as the color on that face pales and pales and pales. “I underestimated you, sis,” Zelena whispers, and Regina only thinks _don’t_.

 

“Shut up,” she musters, “not you, too. Not you,” and why is her magic like oil in her veins? Where is the light that had delivered this fatal blow?

 

She tries pressing the emerald pendant back upon that chest, the rise and fall becoming slower and slower –– it’s not supposed to be this way, there’s still so much for them left –– but her fingers are heavy and clumsy –– _this is not supposed to happen –– you’re my sister –– not again, no more, no more ––_

Slower and slower yet until the weight in her arms is still and she might as well have been holding a marble statue. The dream unlatches and everything goes dark.

  
  


* * *

 

 

When she awakens, the terror takes hold of her lungs and she tosses her blankets aside, and immediately pads out of her room with an urgency that can’t really be explained rationally. It doesn’t make much reasonable sense that she should be rustling out of bed and bumping into things in the hallway to find Zelena’s room. It was only a nightmare, she has those every now and then, and there is a line between dream and reality, there are rules that Regina is all too well-versed in. It was only a nightmare.

 

And she’ll know that once she opens Zelena’s door, the fuzzy shades of dark blue taking proper shape once gentle light comes pouring in and there she is, lying on her stomach sprawled out on the bed, snoring lightly. Perfectly alive. Dreaming of donuts, maybe.

 

Regina sighs and loosens her grip on the doorknob as consciousness fully illuminates in her. She knows now that it was nothing but an anxiety revisited. She knows that it had already been dealt with. She knows that the line between dream and reality is still there, perfectly intact, as exhibited by the snoring monster of a sister before her.

 

And with the return of that knowledge her brow furrows. Tears spring into her eyes and she stops breathing a little because the line doesn’t mean _shit_. Zelena, difficult and sweet and stupid, like anyone and everyone else, can still just _stop breathing_.

 

Regina carries herself –– so heavy but so weightless at the same time –– and sits at the edge of Zelena’s bed, just next to her body that, were she awake, would curl around Regina like an old lazy cat.

 

Zelena sleeps with her mouth open. Regina thinks briefly of how easily a fly or a spider could make its way into that cave and choke her and that would be the end of her. The only defense she’d have is the moat of saliva pooling out of her dumb mouth. Regina smiles, brushes a strand of loose hair from Zelena’s face, tucks it behind her ear.

 

The feeling of her still body in her arms comes back to Regina in a pang and she can’t help the sob that pushes its way up from her chest and out of her mouth. Her sister’s a loser who can do things like plan elaborate revenge but then mess up a bowl of easy mac, or master the art of broom flying, or as of late, swiffer flying, and then fall on her ass while sitting down –– and Regina actually, _actually_ doesn’t know what she would do if she were to suddenly _cease_. She had lost so much already. This family is too precious, too vulnerable.

 

Zelena stirs at the sound of Regina’s stifled cries, and it’s as if the long breath she inhales lifts her back into proper existence. She flips onto her back, and catching sight of Regina’s dark figure through dried and squinted eyes, she sighs.

 

“It’s like shitty o’clock at night,” she rasps while wiping away the spit on the side of her cheek with her sleeve, “go back to bed.”

 

But Regina remains seated, now hushing herself, because hearing Zelena speak, even if it means being in proximity to her sleep breath, is what’s keeping her grounded right now. And Zelena, sweet and always thinking, tosses her hand forward in search for Regina’s arm.

 

“What’s wrong?” She runs her thumb across her skin. Regina frowns and the tears come again.

 

“Nothing,” she whispers. Any tier higher in volume and her voice would have shaken. The terror of her nightmare pollutes the air around her again. “I just needed to see if you were okay.”

 

Zelena’s eyes are properly open now; Regina can see the gleam in them. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

 

Regina shrugs, absently taking Zelena’s hand in her own. “Spiders, maybe. Who knows. You must’ve swallowed ten of them tonight, the way you sleep.” She quickly uses her free hand to clear her face of the fallen tears. She doesn’t know why she’s hiding them. Zelena already knows, even when it’s shitty o’clock at night.

 

“Darling idiot,” Zelena sighs, scoots over and opens her arms. Regina’s heart feels full. ”Come here.”

 

Regina begins to lean down but then grimaces at the pillow. “You drooled there.”

 

Zelena flips it over with an exaggerated motion. “Better?”

 

“For all I know this side has an entire layer of it,” Regina quips, and lays down anyway, settling next to Zelena like she’s a niche and she belongs there.

 

The warmth of Zelena is such a contrast to the sting of a cold, heavy body. And it wouldn’t pierce that place between Regina’s lungs as much, except that she was a turn away from having that reality. The line doesn’t mean _shit_ , and never really has.

 

The sobs come out more freely this time, and Zelena doesn’t say anything –– she knows that if Regina needed her to talk about this, she’d have asked. Instead she just idly picks up and drops locks of Regina’s hair on the back of her head and hums. She doesn’t stop until Regina quiets, until the shaking subsides, and she’s drifted back into sleep, and there is no death, almosts or might-be's, to contemplate.

  
  
  



	2. father finite (aka you can't spell daddy without a why)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was posted on my tumblr a few months ago. it was supposed to come after a few other ficlets after "schrodinger's sister", but seeing as i won't be writing for OUAT anymore, i guess it only makes sense to post what i have now.
> 
> i want to thank you all for reading this giant mess of a fix-it. this ficverse will always be in my heart and all the love it's received from you all means so much to me. 
> 
> <3

Because the universe thinks it’s so funny, the event that ruptures Zelena’s very being happens on a day that starts with utter mundanity. It’s a Sunday, and Regina is in the office early morning. Zelena oversleeps and after finally sliding out of bed she groggily puts in the laundry while Henry microwaves the pancakes that he made while she was still hours away from waking. She eats that with gratuitous amounts of syrup, heavy eyelids still half-closed but slowly unloading with every sip of coffee. She and Henry watch the news and then an episode of _Criminal Minds_ on Netflix before she gets a text from Regina telling her to remind Henry to do his homework.

So now she’s sitting in the backyard porch with a Dale Pendell book she’d found in the recesses of Regina’s study as Henry does his biology worksheets under the apple tree. The skies are remarkably void of Storybrooke’s characteristic gray, and at this point that is all Zelena thinks would be remarkable. But, again, because the universe writes up the best ironies, this is not the case.

It starts with the thunder-like grumble. It seems to be nothing, but there’s a change in the air when it quiets––Henry doesn’t note it, but it stings Zelena’s nose and clogs up her lungs and suddenly she can’t even move her hands to set down the book.

“I wonder what that was,” Henry says.

Zelena can’t shake off her discomfort. She doesn’t even know what it’s for. “I’ll call Regina.”

*

“Please let it not be ogres,” Emma mutters to herself as she leads the way into the woods. Regina walks at even distance beside Zelena, stretching her fingers and assessing the damage.

“Ogres are not hard to miss, thankfully,” Regina says. “Meaningless and localized destruction of one spot of the forest doesn’t seem to fit their bill.”

Emma hums in relief but Zelena can’t help but to clench her hands as she looks at the way the trees have fallen. The damage is circular. She occupies herself with the adjustment of her gloves when she asks, “Does this world have any weather phenomena that permits for this?”

They look back at her like she’s grown a second head.

“That’s an oddly specific question,” Emma says. Zelena thinks, well, unlike the dreadful feeling she can’t identify, at least.

“We’ll figure that out later. For now we need to make sure no one was here and is hurt.”

Zelena is about to make a quip about the Merry Men when she hears it. She hears it and neither of them do, and she runs past them, steps over fallen trunks and to the outside the purview of the damage. They call after her but she ignores them.

She stops to catch her breath, willing her own body to quiet so she may _hear_. Then there’s a shuffling in the bushes to her right. The sound becomes clearer as she approaches it––it’s a jagged breathing, a low tired groaning, and she knows it anywhere, even if––even if––

“Hello?” she says, tentatively. Her stomach is in knots.

“Get away.” She knows the voice. She _knows the voice_.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m with the mayor and the sheriff.” She says it as if it could possibly mean anything to the person she’s speaking to. “I’m here to help.”

The figure stands up and out of the bushes with shaking limbs and she’s beginning to cry before he lifts his head to reveal an old, heavy-lined face underneath dirty white hair. His clothes are ragged and torn he’s struggling to stand but she doesn’t want to touch him.

“Zelena!” Regina calls as she and Emma catch up, and that’s when his eyes become wide and panicked.

“Zelena,” he croaks like it is a curse, and collapses.

*

Emma and Zelena sit in the ambulance with her unconscious father on the stretcher, oxygen mask strapped over his face. Regina is following behind them with Robin in the police cruiser.

“He’s your father?” Emma says quietly, incredulously. “I didn’t… I assumed he was––you know––“

“I assumed so, too. I hoped so.”

Emma looks at her like maybe she didn’t mean that. But maybe she did.

*

She hears the door open and feels the weight pressed down behind her on the mattress. A warm hand is laid gently on her blanketed arm.

“Are you awake?” Regina asks.

“Yes,” Zelena whispers. She’d never been asleep. The dried tears on her face are starting to sting.

Regina sits there breathing, then a sharp inhale: “He wants to see you some time.” The words are anticipated but they still weigh the Earth.

Zelena sits up, and Regina removes her hand from her arm only to grasp Zelena’s fingers at the sight of her slightly puffed and reddened eyelids.

“Why do you think this is happening?” Zelena says, voice very small. Her body shivers a bit as she tries to get a hold of her damn self.

“Well,” Regina starts, bringing her legs up on the mattress, her toes touching the headboard. “What I’m not going to tell you is that this is meant to be a second chance of some sort, or a punishment, or any working of fate that you are inclined to believe. Maybe things happen simply because they happen.”

“So no reason, then,” she huffs with the shrug of her shoulders. “I’m finally happy and out of no where the person who cast me out of my only home plops back into my reality. The universe has no motive there, sure.”

Regina’s eyes soften, looking at Zelena the way only she could. She grasps Zelena’s hands with both of hers now, leans closer to the side to emphasize what she communicates.

“He can’t take anything away from you,” she says firmly, like if she knew only one truth in the entire world, it would be that.

Zelena’s face scrunches up and maybe that’s not what Regina was expecting but she’s clenching her blankets with her free hand because, _maybe_ ––maybe not _anymore_. But he did once. He did.

*

Midday Zelena finds herself in the middle of that devastated part of the forest, sitting on top of what is now a log. It sounds different here. The birds don’t chirp as sweetly, and with the sight of destroyed nests underneath fallen branches, Zelena can understand why.

She sighs and stuffs her hands in the big pocket of her purple hoodie. Henry and Regina had gotten it for her for Christmas, and the shoes she’s wearing is a pair of grey Converse that Emma had given her out of concern for her constantly arched feet in her plethora of heels. The only thing that came from herself are the leggings––not a wise choice, as it’s a bit too thin and the bark of the fallen tree trunk is rough on her ass.

Zelena is visibly no longer the person she was when she left her father’s home, nor the person she became after that. She’s not the Wicked Witch anymore. She’s just Zelena. She is comfortable in her skin, in her head, in her clothes. But she still feels like she’s being punished.

There is really only one person who has the right to punish her, and that’s Regina. If it were her, she could take it. She could see how she deserved it. But not her father. She doesn’t deserve this.

She hears the rhythmic crunch of leaves behind her a short distance, and just by the way she imagines the walker to waddle lazily a bit, she knows it’s Emma.

“I have to stop running into you in the woods like this,” she says when she finally reaches Zelena. “The R’s and your Tink may grow suspicious.”

“‘The R’s’,” Zelena mocks. “What are you doing here?”

Emma perches herself on the trunk next to her, resting her elbows atop her knees and letting her hands hang down. “Thought I’d check it out here, too. You know, to try and figure out what’s happened.”

“That’s not what you’re going to do by the end of today, are you.”

“No, I guess not.” Emma inhales and exhales loudly as she rocks her boots from heels to toes and wiggles her fingers in a characteristically, absently, fidgety Emma way. It makes Zelena rub her fingers together in her pocket.

“What would you do in my place?” She doesn’t really give context, but Emma knows.

“Well,” she begins. “I don’t know. If I had the chance to see any of the foster parents that gave me up, I don’t know.” There’s a sound like heartbreak in her voice, but Zelena doesn’t prod.

“So I’m on my own on this one.”

“No,” Emma says, softly but firmly. “You make your own choices but you aren’t alone when you make them.”

It takes a while for the words to travel through Zelena’s body, and she thinks of Emma right here and Regina at home and Henry at school and it feels warm. It feels less heavy. “I suppose.”

“Can I ask you something, though?” Emma says, her eyes squinting in that curious way.

“What?”

“Did you ever know your biological father? The one that skipped out on Cora and you. Did you ever look for him the way you looked for Cora?”

Zelena freezes. And laughs a bit, out of nervousness. “No. The Wizard never told me anything about him. I didn’t ever think about him, really.”

“That’s kind of suspicious,” Emma says, and perhaps she’s blatantly ignoring that Zelena just referenced her almost fiancé.

Then Zelena laughs, fuller. “I’m going to spend my whole life repenting for this shitfest.”

*

Everything is finite. Zelena had first learned that her second Ozian winter when there was nothing left to put in her mouth for days, then when her mother slowly trickled out of existence until she ceased, and then when her father stopped loving her, if he ever had at all. She relearned it when her sobriety from envy was cut short, too easily in the form of Dorothy Gale, and when her friendship with Glinda had soiled. When yet another home was tarnished. Or when she was bleeding half to death in Regina’s merciful, merciful arms.

But at least that means even suffering is finite, too. At least when Zelena is here now, with a still finite Regina but with infinite room in her heart, she no longer feels the suffocating air that lingers after the world goes dark. Waking up doesn’t feel like entering a miserable, senseless dream. Looking into living eyes is no longer synonymous with looking at nothing. Oz is only but a closed scar now. It has healed. It is done with.

Almost. This she keeps in mind as she enters her father’s hospital room.

She’s wearing the same clothes she had on when she talked with Emma that afternoon, and when he makes eye contact with her from his bed, IV through his arm and an oxygen mask over his face, she wonders how ridiculous she must look to him.

“Hello,” she manages to say, almost choking on it. He doesn’t speak, but he looks at the chair beside his bed. Zelena holds her breath and sits there.

He looks very ill. The last time she had seen anyone so ill, well—it was the last time she’d seen her mother. There are so many lines on his face that she wonders how and what he’d gone through to live this long and so miserably, too. She had never gone after him after becoming the witch. He was as dead to her as she was to him. But his face no longer hurts her, those creases and lines don’t form the same way they once did when he was spitting out how wicked she was. All of it is gone, withering. He is withering. He is finite.

She stuffs her hands back into her big pocket, puts her feet together so the sneakers are touching. When she is done here, her family, her true family, will all be waiting for her.

“Did you want to tell me something?” Zelena asks, and the words come out slowly, lightly, stripping any kind of malice that he would mistakenly perceive as there.

He looks at her intently, and there’s a moisture in his eyes, the lines on his face arranging in a way that Zelena can’t tell whether it is from physical pain or fear of her or regret that he ever requested her to be here.

Then he opens his mouth and she holds her breath, waits for something, but she doesn’t know what, and he says, slowly, quietly: “You look happier.”

And then something somewhere in Zelena snaps because then there are tears in her eyes and laughs because if she looks happy now she wonders what she looked like back then. “Yes,” she nods, wiping her eyes. “I am now.”

“New family.”

Zelena sniffles. “Yes.” It feels like a triumph, because he had acted as if no one would have wanted her. That mother was the only one. And here she was, so wanted. So loved. “Do you want me to tell you about them?”

It’s almost cruel but he nods. He nods and Zelena tells him about how she had found her loveliest sister with a heart bigger than the sun and when she deserved darkness, her sister gave her nothing but light.

*

And, after all, in a really funny, incredible, a-bit-of-a-stretch kind of way, had it not been for him she would have never have found Regina.

Regina is in the kitchen stirring over a pot of just-finished caldereta when Zelena walks in.

“Look who’s home,” she says, not turning to her just yet in case she’d not wanted to be seen. Zelena washes her hands at the sink before moving to the corner counter, opening the rice cooker and scooping rice out onto a serving bowl.

“Hi. Smells good.” It always does.

She feels Regina’s hand touch her back lightly, prompting Zelena to look at her.

Regina looks for the words to say. Zelena thinks maybe it’ll be a “how do you feel?” or “are you okay?” But Regina is the best, so she says: “Will you need wine after this?”

Zelena laughs, closes the lid of the cooker. “A little bit, yeah.”

Then after a second: “Regina, thank you.”

“I have plenty of wine.”

“No,” Zelena shakes her head. “For seeing _me_. For seeing _me_ even when I refused to see _you_.”

The hand on her back moves to her wrist for a tight reassuring squeeze, accompanied by Regina’s watery eyes and bright, bright smile. Zelena thinks she Regina may hug her, but oh, instead, pulls Zelena’s hood over her head and over her face.

“Help me set the table, _greenga_.”

Zelena grumbles and shakes off the hood, lifting the serving bowl and heading to the dining room. “I was gonna do that anyway, ya shitface.”

 


End file.
